Heavens Above

Press

Film Review
Cary Stemle
LEO / November 13, 2002

By now you've heard a good bit about the Louisville Film & Video Festival, which is under way and runs through Tuesday at the Baxter Avenue Theatres. A couple of items that haven't been highlighted yet deserves a fresh look.

Thursday evening, Louisville filmmaker Ron Schildknecht, who has a long association with the festival, will show his beautiful 30-minute film "Heavens Above." The experimental film focuses on two people - a man and a woman - who are on parallel paths that are destined to cross. The man is on a mission to find a new planetarium after his "home" planetarium is razed. The woman is a writer in search of a new way of looking at the world.

The black-and-white film is in French with subtitles. There's little dialogue, per se; a narrator tells the story amidst a nice musical score that wraps up with a way cool version of Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine" by Pete Townshend. The film is part of a trio of American Narrative Shorts that will be shown beginning at 8:30 p.m. Thursday; Schildknecht will answer questions afterward.